


Parent Trapped

by BriMarie



Series: The Book of Love: Rini Drabbles [6]
Category: High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fights, Fluff, Nini Salazar roberts - Freeform, apologizing, escape room, high school musical the musical the series - Freeform, hsmtmts, parent trapped, rickini, ricky bowen - Freeform, rini - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:08:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24565897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BriMarie/pseuds/BriMarie
Summary: After an argument, Ricky and Nini try to avoid each other at all cost, which negatively effects the friend group. So their friends of course did what any regular person would do, create a scheme to mend them together again.
Relationships: Ricky Bowen & Nini Salazar-Roberts, Ricky Bowen/Nini Salazar-Roberts
Series: The Book of Love: Rini Drabbles [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1757938
Comments: 10
Kudos: 47





	Parent Trapped

None of their friends knew why they were so angry with each other.

All they know is that one day they were close friends and the next they were strangers. It apparently happened sometime over summer break. They knew that they had been hanging out and that something happened that was bad enough for them to try to avoid any form of communication.

If one found out that the other was appearing at a group hang out, they’d not attend. It forced the group of friends to invite one of them and exclude the other, which they really hated doing because it was more fun with everyone included.

The very few times when they did have to be around each other they would pretend the other didn’t exist. They also would turn the other way when they saw each other in the hallways of the school. They only spoke once for the past few months, and it wasn’t even a full sentence. 

The friends decided that enough was enough and decided that they needed to devise a plan that would ensure they would become friends again to diminish this feud. They all agreed to meet at Ashlyn’s place to discuss their plan.

“Okay so what I think we should do is try to find out why each of them are mad at each other. I know that anytime it’s brought up they both change the subject quickly, so we’ll really have to force it out of them.” Ashlyn suggested.

“Well how exactly would we go about that? Both of them are super stubborn especially Ricky. That kid can fall off the earth at any second.” Carlos said.

“Yeah he’s right. They will never actually tell us what caused them to be angry with each other that simply. We need to think of something else. Maybe something more forceful.” Gina said.

They all sat and thought of possible ways to make them be in the same room that forces them to talk.

“Oh my god, I think I’ve got an idea! How about we plan to meet at an escape room and then invite the both of them, but we don’t show up? They’ll be forced to be in the same room for like 30 minutes to an hour, so they’d have to work together to leave and also hopefully work out their problem.” Seb suggested.

The others all looked at each other to see their opinions, and they all seemed to have been on the same page. 

“Alright it seems like we all like that idea. We can aim for this Saturday. I know the exact place to do it. I don’t mind calling in.” Kourtney said. 

“I really hope this works. This is either going to blow up in our faces or bring all of us together.” Big Red said.

Ashlyn rests her hand on his shoulder and gives him a reassuring smile. “Let’s just hope for the best.” 

***

The group was beyond stressed about what was to come in the next few minutes. They had all rode in the same van to make sure both Ricky and Nini appeared at the escape room. 

They told Nini an earlier time so that they wouldn’t walk in at the same time, but she would only arrive ten minutes earlier. They all agreed that Kourtney would be the one to greet the both of them, so she was already waiting for them inside. She would let Nini in first and tell her the others were on the way and then let Ricky in. Before either could run, she’ll close the door which automatically locks. 

They all were waiting anxiously in Ashlyn’s mom’s van constantly looking at their phone to check the time. 

“Dudes I’m sweating like a pig from all of this anticipation.” Big Red began airing out his hoodie.

“Yeah I feel you. She should be here any moment now.” Gina says.

As if on cue, they see Nini’s car pull up and they all duck just in case she sees them.

“Oh shit she’s here; someone text Kourtney!” Ashlyn says. Gina does as told, and the rest watch Nini from behind their chairs. They all watch as Nini looks around the parking lot most likely looking for any sight of their friends cars. She then gives up her search and goes inside.

Nini smiles when she sees Kourtney waiting in the lobby. “Hey Kourt, I guess we’re the first ones here.” 

They briefly hug. “Yeah it seems so. The others texted me and said they’re on their way. We can wait inside the escape room.” 

Nini nods. “Yeah let’s go!”

Kourtney leads her to the room. When she opens the door, she lets Nini walk in first. She then gets a text from Gina saying that Ricky has arrived a little earlier than expected. She gasps louder than intended causing Nini to become alarmed.

“Everything okay?” 

Kourtney quickly puts her phone in her pocket and makes her most convincing smile.

“Yeah I’m totally cool, but hey I’m gonna head to the bathroom real quick. I’ll be back.” 

She turns around and closes the door before Nini could get another word in. Right as she closed the door, she sees Ricky enter the store. He waves when he meets her gaze and begins walking towards her.

“Hey where’s everyone else? I’m never the first one here.” 

Kourtney feels her heartbeat quicken from both excitement and anxiety. “Yeah actually they texted me and said they’re close by, so we can just hang in the escape room til then.”

“Yeah that’s fine by me.” 

She opens the door and let’s him in. Once he was fully inside, she slams the door in a flash. 

Ricky turns around and realized that she didn’t follow him after and tries to open the door, but he quickly noticed that it had locked from the inside. 

He banged on the door. “Yo Kourt! What’s happening?”

“Ricky?”

His heart stops when he hears the familiar voice that he hasn’t heard say his name since July. He thought that he might’ve imagined it; that is until he made a full 180 and saw that she was indeed there.

“Nini, what’re you doing here?”

She folded her arms and began to glare at him. 

“I could ask you the same thing Bowen.” 

He copied her pose. “Well I asked first!”

She rolls her eyes. “Real mature Ricky.”

“Whatever. Wait I thought Kourtney and I were the first ones here, and they didn’t say they were inviting you.”

Nini furrows her brows trying to understand what was happening until a light bulb went off in her head. 

“Oh my god, I think we’re being parent trapped or something like that.”

He groaned and turned back to the door to try to somehow unlock it. As expected, it didn’t budge.

“It won’t open unless an employee opens it or we figure out the puzzle genius.”

He twists his head and flips her off. “Yeah I know how escape rooms work Nina.” He says bitterly. 

“I don’t know why they’d do this to us.” 

He turns his body towards her again. “It’s probably to make us get along.”

“How the hell is that supposed to work? This is the most we’ve spoken in months, and it’s only because we’re being forced to!”

“Well to be fair, we wouldn’t have agreed to meet up without force.”

Well she couldn’t disagree with that.

“True...”

An awkward silence fills the room, and the both of them are too afraid to look at each other.

Ricky not being able to handle it anymore begins to pick up the clues left on a table to escape. He places one of the clues in front of her.

“The sooner we figure this out, the sooner we get out of this room.” He looks at her eyes for the first time in months, and he’d be lying if he said it didn’t feel like coming home. She sighs in defeat and takes the clue from his grasp.

“Okay fine. God knows I don’t wanna be stuck here with you for another 45 minutes.”

He felt his heart sting, but decided to ignore it. God it was gonna be a long 45 minutes.

***

Twenty minutes have passed, and they were doing surprisingly well working together to escape the room. They only had butt heads a few times spitting a couple of insults when one of them screwed up, but overall they were solving it pretty fast for two people.

“Awe fuck. I didn’t notice that I missed this clue in my pocket.” Ricky held up the crumbled piece of paper. Nini groans and snatches the tiny sheet of paper from him.

“Of course you did! Leave it up to you to fuck something up. This’ll set us back like ten minutes.”

He feels his blood boiling. “Excuse me, but what the hell do you mean by that?!”

She rests her hand on her hip and looks up at him with the fiercest look she could muster.

“Oh you know _exactly_ what I’m talking about.”

“No, I don’t actually; please educate me oh wise one.” He snaps back.

“You fucked up our friendship.”

“No, I simply told you how I felt at the time, and it’s not my fault you took it to heart!”

She really wanted to slap him, but resists the urge. “Well how’d you expect me to feel?! Of course I was gonna be mad at you! You insulted my abilities!”

“How’d you expect _me_ to react Neens?! You were just gonna up and leave me and your other friends for some school in a different state. I wasn’t exactly thrilled!”

“Um news flash Richard, friends are supposed to support each other!”

“I do support you! It’s just that...It’s just...”

“It’s just what?! Am I not talented enough to be accepted into YAC to you?!”

“No, it’s just that I...” 

“Spit it out already!”

“It’s just that I don’t want to lose you Nini okay? I don’t want to see someone I deeply care about leave and forget all about me!”

Silence took over the room, and they both were staring at each other. Ricky’s eyes bore into hers, and he felt a single tear roll down his cheek.

“Ricky...”

“I’m sorry I insulted your talents. I didn’t mean it. I was speaking from anger and fear, but that doesn’t excuse the hurtful things I said to you. I just couldn’t bare the thought of having you out of my life. What’s ironic about it is that I ended up being the thing that divided us.”

To his surprise, Nini walked up to him and wrapped her arms around his torso. His body stiffened at her touch which was starting to become foreign to him.

“Ricky, I wish you would’ve just told me. I didn’t know you felt like that. I would _never_ forget my friends, especially you.”

He finally lets his arms wrap around her. His heart warms up the moment he does. “I’m so sorry Neens. I promise I’ll never do it again. God please forgive me.” 

She chortles and looks up at him. She almost forgets what she was going to say when she gazes into his kind amber eyes. 

“I forgive you.”

They both smile from ear to ear and rest their heads on each other’s. All of a sudden, they both can’t keep their eyes off of each other’s lips. He tightens his grip on her waist as she places her palms on both sides of his face.

In the blink of an eye, their lips are touching and both of them feel like nothing else in the world mattered. This was cloud 9. When they finally unattached their lips, they both felt dizzy. 

“Wow.” He says.

“Yeah, wow.”

“I feel like that was long overdue. Don’t you think?”

She nods. “Yeah this was bound to happen sooner or later.”

“So, what now?”

She shrugs and plays with his curls. “Well we clearly have an attraction to each other, so I say we just embrace it and see how it goes for now and then we can decide on our label.”

He smiles and gives her a nose kiss. “I’d like that.”

“Cool, now that we figured that out, we should probably escape this room.” She says.

“Yep let’s do that. I can’t stand this place anymore.”

Ten minutes later, they finally solved the escape room and were greeted by an employee opening the back door.

“Congrats! You can receive your prizes at the register. Come follow me.” They followed the employee holding hands. They saw all of their friends waiting for them in the lobby with anxious faces until they noticed they were holding hands.

“Holy shit dudes! You made it without ripping each other’s heads off! I’m honestly shocked it worked!” Big Red says.

“Yeah apparently it worked really well.” Seb said pointing at their joined hands. The couple blushes while the others snicker. 

“Shut up! You guys are lucky we worked it out otherwise we would’ve killed you.” Nini said.

“So are you guys like a thing now?” Carlos asks.

The pair look at each other and smile. He undoes their joined hands and wraps his arm around her. 

“Someday.” Ricky says.

The group cheer and wolf whistles. “Yay mom and dad are back together!” Kourtney jokes.

“Yasss Rini is endgame! Ooo I’m going to make that a hashtag!” Gina says quickly snapping a photo of the pair and posting it to her Instagram.

“Omg yes I’m dying. I’m deceased.” Ashlyn says also hopping on the trend.

Ricky and Nini laugh at their friends antics.

“Our friends are so odd.” She says wrapping both arms around his frame.

“Yeah, but we love them.”

“Yeah you’re right.”

***

_Let the angry word be answered only with a kiss_

**Author's Note:**

> Longest Drabble so far! I’ll probably post another fic in like 3-5 days give or take.
> 
> Hope you liked it!


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